Market declines as caution rises
Market declines as caution rises
Local shares slid on Monday morning as blue chips declined on increasing cautious market sentiment. 
The benchmark VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange fell 0.58 per cent to end at 858.53 points.
The VN-Index lost a total of 25.6 per cent last week.
More than 250.5 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth nearly VND3.5 trillion (US$150.4 million).
The index was up 0.54 per cent at its high of the session and down 1.08 per cent at the low.
The blue-chip share tracker VN30-Index dropped 0.67 per cent to 802.38 points.
Two-thirds of the 30 largest stocks by market valuation and trading liquidity declined while nine increased.
Among decliners were consumer staples firm Masan (MSN), lenders Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID) and Vietcombank (VCB), PetroVietnam Gas (GAS), retailer Mobile World Investment (MWG), and SSI Securities (SSI).
Those large-cap stocks pulled the indices of food and beverage, banking, brokerage, mining and energy sectors down between 1.1 per cent and 1.6 per cent, according to vietstock.vn.
On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index was down 0.38 per cent to close Monday morning at 116.46 points.
The northern market index scaled back nearly 1 per cent in total last week.
More than 42.7 million shares were traded on the northern bourse, worth nearly VND383 billion.
The afternoon trading session starts at 1pm.
